A list of career goals is one of the best first steps to achieving those goals. Understanding yourself and what you want for your career future can help you to get there. By taking an honest assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, what your interests are and what type of lifestyle you want to lead, you can achieve those goals.
Assessing
Thinking about the things that you consider important, what interests you and where you’d like to be in the future provides a solid start toward creating a career goal list. If there is coursework you enjoyed, hobbies you're passionate about or potential careers that fascinated you, they're probably good indications of your interests. Where you’d like to be includes what heights you’d like to set for your career path in five years or more and considering what you’d like to do if there were no obstacles in your path.
Skills and Strengths
Taking into account your strengths and skills can help you set achievable career goals. Perhaps your communication or analytical skills are your strong suit or maybe they are both equally solid. Your skill sets and strengths come from your life experiences, education and work experience, so examine all aspects of your life. Comparing how your strengths and skill sets line up with your current situation and what you have in mind for the future can help shape your career goal list.
Lifestyle
Lifestyle can have a significant impact on a well-honed career list. Whether you intend to take time off to have a family or need to earn enough money to support a lavish lifestyle are all considerations for creating your career goal list. Thinking about work-life balance will help to put things into perspective. For instance, you might feel irregular hours would impede the lifestyle you wish to maintain. Or work related travel might be a bonus or hindrance to the life you envision and will ultimately affect your list.
Implementation
It’s never a bad idea to overwrite your list. You can always review and edit the list down as you go. The list can include the steps you need to get to your final vision or goal. It can include goals that affect your career as well as the things you’d like to achieve in your goal. Once you’re satisfied with the list, it should be placed somewhere prominent, where you can examine your goal list and make adjustments to your life and work accordingly. As your life changes, it’s perfectly acceptable to make adjustments to the list itself to better suit your evolving career goals.
References
Writer Bio
C.E. Chan has been a writer since 2003, contributing to magazines, online publications and education organizations. Her work has appeared in "Popular Dogs," "Dog World" and "The Architect's Newspaper," among other outlets. With a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Southern California, Chan worked in the architectural field for several years before becoming a writer.